public policy

Give me the money, then I'll give it to AT&T says Pai

16 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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In his “first major policy address” as chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai urged congress to channel broadband infrastructure spending through him. Pai spoke at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh yesterday, and focused almost entirely on broadband, with particular emphasis on the mobile variety.

Broadband infrastructure is at the top of his policy agenda. If congress decides to fund it, Pai thinks that the FCC should run the program and channel the money through its existing, incumbent-centric subsidy programs…

Any direct funding for broadband infrastructure appropriated by Congress as part of a larger infrastructure package should be administered through the FCC’s Universal Service Fund (USF) and targeted to areas that lack high-speed Internet access…

…our track record is frankly better than that of other agencies.

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CenturyLink gets extortionate pricing bonus from Level 3 deal

15 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Level 3 is engaging in “extortionate pricing” for the middle mile fiber connections it leases to broadband companies, and the problem will only get worse if CenturyLink is allowed to buy it. That’s the claim made by Windstream, a relatively small incumbent telephone company, based in Arkansas, that also offers data networking and other telecommunications services to businesses outside of its primary coverage area.

Windstream filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission, as it decides whether CenturyLink’s proposed purchase of Level 3 will go forward.… More

Competitive pole access, urban streetscapes considered by CPUC

14 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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The California Public Utilities Commission will decide whether wireline telephone companies and other licensed telecommunications companies can attach wireless equipment to utility poles on the same terms as mobile carriers. Responding to a request from the Wireless Infrastructure Association (WIA), a lobbying group for companies that build and own cell towers and similar facilities, CPUC president Michael Picker is proposing to start the process that could eventually grant that permission.

But the questions he wants to ask go beyond the simple technical and legal considerations that go along with the current pole attachment rules, and touch on broader questions of competitive barriers and how much infrastructure is too much, particularly in urban areas…

Although the scope of this proceeding is limited to [licensed telecoms companies’] wireless pole attachments, we will take comment on (1) whether there is sufficient space and load-bearing capacity on the stock of existing utility poles to support additional telecommunications attachments, including wireless pole attachments, that may be necessary to provide ubiquitous, competitive, and affordable telecommunications services; (2) whether the cost of replacing existing poles to support additional telecommunications attachments poses a barrier to entry; and (3) whether urban streetscapes can accommodate more pole attachments, the replacement of existing poles with larger poles, and possibly an increase in the number of poles.

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IBM cons patent office about email feature then backs down

13 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Sounds good to me.

If you’ve ever set your email account to send out an I’m on vacation and you’re not auto-response, you might have just dodged a bullet. The U.S. patent office granted IBM a patent on an “out-of-office electronic mail messaging system” that is indistinguishable from the vacation auto-responder that’s been baked into every email platform on the planet for the past 20 years.

But in a gesture of corporate magnanimity – after being roundly and justifiably ripped by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the trade press – IBM has released the patent into the public domain.… More

FCC preps a bipartisan bigfoot for cities and counties

12 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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But only the bad actors. Honest.

Local governments will have even less to say about how and where broadband infrastructure will be built. That was the clear and bipartisan message from two members of the Federal Communications Commission when they testified in front of a U.S. senate committee on Wednesday. Michael O’Rielly, who reliably takes conventional republican positions, went straight for the jugular…

Standing in the way of greater Internet access nationwide are barriers imposed by state, local, and tribal entities.

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Wikileaks shows there's no such thing as a top secret hack

11 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Not the latest version.

The Central Intelligence Agency’s guide to cracking is getting bad reviews from the tech community. Published earlier this week on Wikileaks, the thousands of files of internal documentation maintained by the CIA’s engineering development group are mostly openly available cook books and mundane advice on how not to get caught.

A story by Sean Gallagher at Ars Technica steps through some of it and concludes it amounts to an outdated “Malware 101” textbook…

It’s not clear how closely tool developers at the CIA followed the tradecraft advice in the leaked document—in part because they realized how dated some of the advice was.

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AT&T's national 911 wireless fail is business as usual

10 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Consider this your notification.

No one knows yet why AT&T’s mobile phone customers couldn’t connect with 911 centers on Wednesday night. AT&T refuses to explain and the Federal Communications Commission doesn’t know either, saying only that its “public safety professionals are on the case”. The extent of the outage is unknown as well, with reports varying from “nationwide” to “likely thousands. Maybe millions”.

It appears that AT&T let a few public safety agencies know about the outage, but not all and probably not most.… More

FCC is still the privacy police, even without common carrier rules

9 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Ajit Pai steered away from discussing the plans, or at least the intent, he has to roll back the Federal Communications Commission’s classification of broadband as a common carrier service during his first congressional appearance as chairman yesterday. But he did indicate that the FCC might not be washing its hands of all responsibility for regulating what Internet service providers do with private customer information.

His appearance in front of the U.S. senate’s commerce, science, and transportation committee came two days after he met with Donald Trump and a day after the news broke that the president had re-appointed him to another five year term on the commission.… More

Monterey Bay broadband expert group offers conduit design advice

8 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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It’s one thing to say that empty telecoms conduit – shadow conduit – should be installed anytime a street is repaved or a utility trench is dug, but that begs a question: what kind of conduit, and how should it be designed?

To answer that question, the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership and the Central Coast Broadband Consortium convened a technical expert group that included senior public works engineers, Internet service providers, underground construction contractors and manufacturers.… More

Love or hate his agenda, but Pai makes good on transparency pledge

7 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Less than six weeks into his term as chairman, Ajit Pai is making significant, and welcome, reforms to the way the Federal Communications Commission does business. There’s plenty of room to take issue with the substance of some of the decisions that the new republican FCC majority has made, or plans to make, but the way it’s going about doing it is far more transparent than past practices were, including particularly those of recently departed chairman Tom Wheeler.… More